Friday, October 10, 2014

Holy guacamole! Either the world has ended or I am dreaming. Whatever reality this may be, the "Coming Out of Their Shells" album is now available for digital download through iTunes or Amazon.com.

Yes, fellow Turtles fans, this is the infamous stage show soundtrack previously only available on cassette from Pizza Hut back in 1990.

Back then, that cassette could be had for less than $4. Now, for less than $10, you can get all 10 songs as high-quality MP3s. But hey, they extra $$ is totally worth the convenience of not having to fast forward through all that empty space at the end of "Pizza Power," or ever having to flip sides. Download it and add it to your phone and/or MP3 player today! Then turn up the volume and put it on repeat!

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

As of today, the official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles score album, featuring music by Brian Tyler, is available as a digital download from iTunes. Unfortunately, this seems to be the only way to get the album as of right now and there are no signs of it being released as a physical CD. However, this is the first official release of a complete TMNT movie score, so it's nice to have at least this.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Once again humoring my love for the old TMNT Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour, with the help of my pal gobo I recently acquired a CD of the French-language version of the infamous TMNT concert tour. And because I'm a giving person, I'm also sharing it with you. Enjoy!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The new Casey Jones fan film uses a brand new piece of music during the end credits, a song by Johnny October titled "Goongala!" You can hear the entire song in the YouTube video below, and you can buy it from iTunes here.

WARNING: The video below has explicit lyrics. There is also a clean version of the song available from iTunes.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

One of the most asked questions I get over on YouTube, which I've always left unanswered, is where one can download the score from TMNT (2007) by Klaus Badelt. You may have noticed that I've uploaded some of the tracks there.

The unfortunate truth about the tracks is that they were leaked to the Internet a couple years ago when Badelt released a limited promo CD of the score. So, copies of it aren't exactly legal.

However, because I do get so many requests, I've decided to share all of the tracks (some of which I wasn't able to put on YouTube). My stipulations for doing this are that the MP3s are only 128kps, and if at anytime Warner Brothers or Mr. Badelt request that the tracks be removed, they will be.

I've also included a bonus track taken from the TMNT soundtrack that was released. There were two score tracks included on that album, and when Warner Brothers had the album streaming on the movie website, one of those tracks was longer (by a couple minutes!) than what was on the CD. So, if you want, you can take that MP3 and replace the one from the album.

Ideally this score would see a proper CD release. To show your support for such a release, click the "Like" button at the top! And if you happen to have one of the tangible promo CDs, I would be very interested in buying it from you. ^_^

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Back in the '90s, Random House released a series of TMNT books and read-along cassette tapes. Three of these sets included a cassette that narrated and performed an included comic book (reprints from the Archie series). The set pictured at left here included two brand new mini storybooks based on the first movie.

The interesting thing about these books is that while they are most obviously based on the movie, all of the artwork reflects the cartoon Turtles of the time. But the thing I love most here is the included cassette.

I remember listening to the cassette using my awesomely hip Sony Walkman while riding in the back seat of my parents' car on a family vacation... and realizing that the same guy who was narrating the story was also doing all of the voices of the different character. Oh, how I LOLed.

Now, it's not unusual for one person to read an audiobook and also do all of the voices, but I do think it is a bit more unusual for a children's tape. But really, in this case it just sounds ridiculous and silly. However, I shall leave it to you to judge for yourself.

For a limited time, I'm making both audio stories available for download here.

I'll also note that each side of the cassette features one of the two stories, read twice. Once without page turn signals and once with page turn signals. I never understood that much, either. Why not put both stories on each side of the cassette and only put the page turn signals on one side? The way it's set up you're stuck either listening to the same story twice in a row or playing the fast-forward game to find the version you want to listen to (ah, the joy of cassette players).

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The second entry into the "Video Flashback" series is a personal favorite of mine. After the wildly-successful "Comin' Out of Their Shells" tour, the TMNT hit the road again in a smaller follow-up tour. This tour played in venues at amusement parks and only featured four songs, three of which were new (although the fourth song, "Sing About It," was never actually played in full in the COOTS tour). And all things considered, the songs are quite good! Laugh if you must, but I'll stand by that statement even if Shredder appears at my front door threatening to steal all of the world's music. And even more-so if he breaks into "I Hate Music."

But I digress. Here is the "Gettin' Down in Your Town Tour," in three parts. Enjoy!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

In the near-25 year history of the TMNT, there have been a lot of high points and a good fair share of low points. A lot of awesome merchandise and some... not so much. "Kazoo with [the] TMNT" would fit into that last category. Or, perhaps even more accurately, into the, "We're willing to approve anything you'll give us money for," category.

Before I go any further I should put forth the disclaimer that I absolutely love the entire musical history of the TMNT. Seriously. Even the stuff that's cheesy as hell is, at worst, a guilty pleasure for me. Even though my sincerity behind any positive words for "Kazoo with [the] TMNT" would be weak, I couldn't deny that it fills me full of giddy laughter.

Here's the premise of "Kazoo with [the] TMNT":
You get a book with very basic sheet music for eight songs from the soundtrack of the first live action movie. You also get four kazoos (bonus points if you can guess the colors of the kazoos). You are meant to kazoo the sheet music. Ok, sure. Why not? Kids like kazoos and Ninja Turtles, it can't be that bad. Right?

Wrong. This perfectly innocent package becomes the stuff of legend with the inclusion of a simple cassette tape. A cassette tape that features all of the songs in the book played by an electronic orchestra and... someone playing the kazoo!! This may be the only example in history of a dedicated kazoo recording. And there's a reason for that.

It's just hard to take the kazoo seriously as a solo instrument. The novelty of it wears off in about 10 seconds, but here it supports eight songs that are 3-5 minutes long. It also, by design, produces a lot of spit, and the producers of this product really didn't make any effort to try to hide that. But then again, did the producers of this product really think they were releasing something stellar? Nah, it was all for the quick buck.

To experience "Kazoo with [the] TMNT" for yourself, you can download the contents of the cassette tape, for a limited time, here.

Monday, August 4, 2008

The TMNT have a rich 25 year history full of what seems to be an endless stream of interpretations. While many of these are fantastic, there are some not so fantastic bits. If you ask people about what the low lights of the past 25 years have been, there are three common answers: The third movie, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, and The Coming Out of Their Shells Tour (COOTS). I actually have no dislike for any of these (my personal steaming pile of Turtle puke is Volume 4 of the comic books), and speaking of COOTS in particular, I love every ounce of it.

Oh sure, it's cheesy as hell. It's also probably one of the most blatantly obvious examples of Eastman and Laird "selling out" the Turtles, if you're one to accuse them of that (I, personally, am not). But damn was it a lot of fun for my 6th grade, 11-year-old self. I mean, really a hell of a lot fun. Now I consider it one of my little guilty pleasures, and I love making particular new acquisitions.

So for a spot of fun, here's a look at a few promotional pictures from the tour. The first one (top), oddly, features a Los Angeles manhole cover.

This second picture was part of an Entertainment Weekly article about the tour. You can read the entirety of the article here - As you'll see, the writer wasn't willing to have a spot of fun at all. :p

The last picture also comes from Entertainment Weekly, but this time they were massively confused about what was being written about, as it was included with a movie review of TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze (they gave it a C+).

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Here is certainly one of the more obscure things I've picked up over the years. Yes, this is another foreign language edition of the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour - This time in Hebrew.

Once again, I'm offering MP3s of the album for download for a limited time only.

Due to my complete illiteracy in Hebrew, I had to call in some help on the translating of the track names, and even then my volunteer got stumped on a few of of the vowels (but a big thanks to oldmanwinters for at least giving me something to work with!). So the blank underscores are missing vowels. If anyone can offer more complete translations, please let me know and I'll send you a photo of the track names. However, all of the songs are completely recognizable, so providing the English titles is no problem.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

In addition to being a collector of obscure TMNT items, I'm also a bit of a tech geek. This means I ask for things like USB turntables for Christmas. And, having received such an item, I have now used my basic audio editing skillz to record the LP of the Spanish translation of the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour to MP3.

As such, I am offering these files for download for a limited time. You can download the album here. Grab 'em while they're there!

Monday, December 24, 2007

The live-action, direct-to-video "We Wish You a Turtle Christmas" hit stores in 1994 at the same time as its counterpart, "Turtle Tunes." Each video is 30 minutes long and features the Turtles and sometimes Splinter and sometimes these random kids (who apparently know the Turtles quite well) singing songs that never had a chance for a Grammy.

Pictured to the top left is the cover to a Netherlands release that combines both videos onto a single DVD. Although I'm not exactly positive that this is an official DVD release (you can see the whole DVD cover here and judge for yourself).

To the bottom left is the cover to a promotional cassette soundtrack that was released to advertise the original VHS tapes (full cover insert here). The cassette features all of the songs from both videos, although some songs are missing dialog that leaves them with awkward chunks of instrumental. One of the songs actually runs longer than it did on the video.